The King and the Courtesan Read online

  “Melissa,” I murmured.

  “Hmm, let’s get a good look at you.” She stepped back a few steps. “Yes. Yes, I can work with this.”

  “Really? You seem to be the only one.” I tossed a hooded glare at Dmitri, who sighed dramatically and looked away.

  “Unlike these three, I’ve met Ezekiel in person. I only met him once, but it was enough.” She snorted and laughed. “Oh boy, was that enough! He’s a good looking guy and rich as hell, but he’s always come across as a bit—well, never mind. All I know is that I can tell he is a man of particular tastes. And if he chose you, dollface, then he means it. Come on. To the room.”

  They were all carrying briefcases and bags, probably filled with products that would turn this cheap hooker into a beautiful courtesan. They led me to the room and yanked me into the bathroom and pulled up a chair, shoving me in front of the mirror. It felt like they were the hosts and I was the visitor.

  “This is where the magic starts,” Josie assured me.

  Briefcases and purses snapped open. Contents were shuffled. Finally, objects began to fly.

  “We aren’t going to do anything until your hair is done and everything else waxed.”

  “Waxed?” I asked, gulping.

  “Yes, waxed,” Johanna said with a vulpine grin. “Dmitri will have the pleasure of the dye. I’m the waxer.”

  “Don’t you worry, chipmunk,” Rosa assured me with a pat on my shoulder. “They’ll take good care of you.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “Come, Josie.” Rosie grabbed Josie’s arm and pulled her out of the room.

  “Well, I don’t have a table to work on,” Johanna muttered bitterly. “I guess the counter will have to do. But Dmitri will do the hair work first. Then, when the highlights are setting, the fun begins!” She held up a jar of what I assumed was wax.

  Dmitri was already snapping on gloves and mixing juices. I gave him a full once-over at last. If he dressed like that in Metro, he’d be dead within the hour. It made me think of poor Yogi, who luckily looked feminine enough to avoid detection. Blade used “gay” and “faggot” interchangeably with absolute relish and zero consideration.

  But Dmitri wasn’t like Yogi. That was evident in his disdainful stare, the one that made me feel like a cockroach beneath the tread of his silver-tipped boot.

  “Sit up straight and don’t fidget,” he ordered.

  “Yes, sir,” I grumbled.

  He harumphed and started shaking a bottle. Johanna stood to the side, still looking me over.

  “What?” I asked her.

  “I’m just looking.”

  “Looking at what?”

  “Oh, nothing,” she sighed, then stepped out of the bathroom. Great. I was alone with Dmitri.

  He worked out the rats in my hair with a fine-toothed comb before setting to work on the highlights. I know it involved some noxious substance, aluminum foil, and a comb, but I wasn’t really positive what was going on. After he finished, he invited Johanna back in. Dmitri sat on the sink and filed his nails while Johanna pulled out towels and laid them on the counter.

  “Okay. Take off the pajamas,” she ordered.

  “But I’m not—I’m not wearing anything under here,” I told her.

  She raised a thin, plucked eyebrow. “So what? I certainly don’t care. And Dmitri doesn’t care.”

  “Not looking,” he said to his nails.

  I didn’t know why I cared, either. After all, I had sex with strangers I knew less about. With a sigh, I yanked off my clothes and lay down on my stomach. Johanna tossed a towel over my rump and began to prepare the wax. The whole time, she and Dmitri talked about some “bitch” named Tanya they both hated. I had almost drifted into my own world when a riiiip and a snap of pain woke me up.

  “Ow!” I gasped.

  “Ick,” Johanna groaned, looking at the tape she’d pulled off my legs. “Honey, when was the last time you waxed?”

  “I don’t wax. I shave.”

  Johanna rolled her eyes in disgust. “No wonder.”

  “Eh, that’s not bad,” stated Dmitri. “You should see it when Ken waxes his back.”

  I didn’t know who Ken was, nor did I care about his back hair. I tried slipping back into a daydream, but Johanna halted all my efforts with another riiiiip.

  I swear my skin was numb by the time she was done. Though I was red and feeling rather irritable, Johanna looked satisfied.

  “Okay, now you look good,” she said.

  This sort of back-and-forth work continued all day. Dmitri spent at least an hour on my hair, not including the time it took to give me highlights. He talked with Johanna and Josie over my head, moving from Ken, who was apparently his significant other, to how much he hated Helen, Ken’s sister. I learned more about Dmitri’s family life in twenty minutes than I knew about my own, though it had the upside of making me feel normal. Mimi and I had our arguments and disagreements, but I certainly did not gossip about her for an hour to my other catty friends.

  Rosa came in to do my makeup. She told the other three to watch TV. They followed orders without a single glance back at me.

  “What about my dress?” I asked her. “I left it in Ezekiel’s car.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that, sweetheart. Ezekiel had it delivered to me. It’s folded up nice and perfect in my bag. But you wait for that. That’s the last step. Right now we’ve got to put your face on.”

  They’d cleaned up my face with wet wipes an hour ago, but Rosa rubbed off all the leftover smudges. Her hands were gentle and her expression soft, unlike her peers.

  “I’m sorry for putting you through all this,” she said as she knelt in front of me. “I can see how much you hate it.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “Painfully.” Rosa gazed at me a long time before she patted my face dry. She pulled out some eyeliner. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why?”

  “Because beauty should be a labor of love, and I hate to put anyone through unnecessary trauma.”

  Rosa placed the side of her hand on my cheek, biting her lip as she started the first line along my lower lid. I tried not to blink and disturb her work.

  “Where are you from?” she asked.

  “Metro.”

  “You know, I used to live in Metro,” she told me softly.

  “Really?” I whispered in disbelief. This beautiful, put-together young woman had once walked the streets of my hometown? While it seemed impossible, she did appear to have Jahralian roots, and most Jahralians hadn’t the money or resources to live anywhere outside of Metro. Jahral was impoverished and war-torn, and in comparison Metro didn’t look so bad.

  “Yes. I lived in a foster home with my younger brother. When I was eighteen, I got a full-ride academic scholarship to a school downtown. I was able to stay and work at home while taking classes.”

  “You went to college?”

  “Of course.”

  “But then why are you a…cosmetologist?”

  She smiled gently. “Oh, hon, I have a degree in business. You think Ezekiel just picked us individuals off the street? No, the others are my employees. I came along because I was curious about what sort of woman a man like Ezekiel would choose.”

  “What happened to your brother?”

  She shrugged. “He graduated high school with straight A’s. I asked him if he wanted to room with me, but he wanted to get his own place. I suddenly lost contact with him. I never saw him and he never called. When I tried calling, he never answered. I emailed, I looked around the address he gave me…nothing. I was beginning to think he was dead.”

  “But he wasn’t,” I murmured, knowing this story all too well.

  She nodded. Her hand trembled a bit as she finished the line beneath my eye. “No. He’d fallen in with some bad people after graduation. He was ambitious… He wanted to be wealthy, and they told him he could be.”

  “He began selling drugs.”

  “Yes. I heard rumors th
at he killed a few people but wouldn’t believe them. My brother had never been violent. Then I heard the cops had found him. He’s in jail. For life, I think. At least I can visit him now. I bring him brownies.” She sat back and ran a shaky hand through her hair. “But enough of this. Let’s talk about something cheerful.”

  I told her about my sister, leaving Joel out of it, and my friends at the “barbershop,” leaving the prostitution out of it. She told me about her business, her husband, and her newborn infant. I skirted around everything important, because I didn’t know Rosa well enough to tell her the truth.

  After many hours of hard work and patience, I was ready to slip into my dress. Rosa wouldn’t let me look in a mirror and laughed when I tried to slide past her and catch a glimpse. She brought new underwear with her and I wondered how the hell she knew my size. Did Ezekiel give her a clue? Then she put me into the dress and finally let me look in the mirror.

  I’d like to say I was a different person. Wouldn’t that be great? To suddenly become someone else, someone poised and perfect, someone who sipped champagne and knew how to address an ambassador at a polo match, someone who would kiss everyone’s cheeks twice and never drink more than one glass of wine.

  But I wasn’t a different person. I looked different, yes. This was as beautiful and cultured as I could possibly be. But I still saw Melissa hovering behind my eyes. I couldn’t erase the track marks in my arm, and there was no way to give me curves or less gangly legs. I was still a Metro prostitute, someone who sold everything to buy something that destroyed her and everyone around her.

  “You’re gorgeous,” Rosa whispered in my ear, a gigantic grin stretched across her pretty face. “You’ll knock ‘em dead.”

  I looked down at my hands, which were already starting to tremble. I hoped that I had enough time to do this before withdrawal set in. As I looked at my new self in the mirror, I knew that I had to. There was a year’s worth of drugs sitting between now and tonight, and I just needed to hold myself together until then.

  Chapter 7

  When I stepped out of the elevator, Ezekiel and two bodyguards were standing in the lobby.

  I once thought that “dashing” was a description suited to film; that only with the right lighting, airbrushing, and angle could a man look as debonair as in the movies. But Ezekiel defied all my previous beliefs. In his pitch-black tuxedo, shined shoes, stark white collar, and silk bow tie, he looked like he’d walked off the set of a luxury car commercial. For a moment, I was sure I was dreaming. It wasn’t the first time this particular sensation gripped me.

  A slow smile crept up his face, the same smile that seemed to hang on his lips whenever I was with him. He held out his hand when I approached, and I grasped it lightly.

  “You look absolutely breathtaking,” he said softly.

  “Thank you.” It was an odd word choice, but from Ezekiel I expected such.

  Ezekiel took me straight to the black limousine waiting out front and helped me through the door that Bruce opened for us. When we both sat, Ezekiel pulled two things from his pockets.

  First came silk elbow-length gloves. They were gorgeous.

  “I thought these would not only look good, but be functional in covering up certain…marks.” His eyes drifted down to the tiny red scabs that dotted the inside of my elbows.

  I tried not to blush as I took the gloves and slipped them on.

  “Also, I have some jewelry I wanted to give you.” He pulled out a square box and opened it. A diamond necklace stared at me. I knew the jewels weren’t fake, even if that was my first instinct. I cast a doubtful look up at Ezekiel.

  “Nothing but the finest. I don’t bother myself with mediocrity,” he replied, holding the necklace up until light bounced off its jewels. “Marvelous, isn’t it? A hundred and three graduated, brilliant cut diamonds.”

  I watched as the diamonds trembled and glittered. I had difficulty breathing. A hundred and three? One diamond was far above anything I could afford. How much did over a hundred cost? My throat went dry at the thought.

  “How much—how much does something like this run?” I had to ask.

  “It’s rude to ask,” Ezekiel replied, but he looked amused. He unlatched it and held it toward me. “Put it on, and let me see you in it.”

  I leaned forward and let him slip it around my neck. His fingers were warm and rougher than I expected for someone of such status. I slowly turned so he could clasp it at the nape of my neck.

  “There are earrings as well,” he said, pointing to the diamond earrings resting on the velvet cushion.

  “You didn’t tell me the price of the necklace.”

  He shrugged. “Nothing of much consequence.”

  “But—”

  “Fifty-six thousand.”

  All things considered, I took the news well. In fact, in my shock, I must have looked hardly impressed.

  “And the earrings were twenty-four thousand. Care to slip these in?” He held them up.

  “I don’t—how—you didn’t have to—”

  “Yes, I did,” he responded slowly. “I told you. I don’t bother myself with mediocrity. Besides, like I said, I invest in things that gain interest. Jewels are no exception. However, I’ve never invested in them before because I see little point to them if no one is around to wear them.” With this, he smirked. “It’s different now.”

  He gave me the earrings and I stared down at them in my silk-covered hand. A lump the size of a grapefruit grew in my throat. I swallowed in an attempt to rid myself of the pressure.

  “Are you going to put them on?”

  I hastened to do so, as I didn’t want to make test Ezekiel’s patience. My fingers trembled, and the gloves made it a little tricky to fit them into one of my many piercings, all of which were empty thanks to Rosa and her tribe.

  “Also, I don’t want you putting earrings in those other holes,” Ezekiel muttered. “I find multiple piercings tacky.”

  I nodded, too awed to be insulted.

  “I had a bracelet for you as well, but there was a mix-up in deliveries and it didn’t come in time.” A shadow fell across his face. “So I lament the fact that you will go bare-wristed at the party. But it is a small inconvenience, no matter how irritating. It won’t happen again.”

  “You didn’t need to get a bracelet, too. I think-I think the necklace alone is gorgeous. I mean, of course the earrings are beautiful—”

  “You won’t be stuttering like this at the party, will you?” Ezekiel’s eyes were fierce, though it was apparent he was trying to soften his demeanor. “While I find it slightly endearing, my fellow elites may not. And you might want to try to cover up your Metro accent.”

  “I have an accent?” I knew the most obvious Metro accent, and I didn’t think I was anywhere close. I’d learned long ago that you managed better if people didn’t know you were from a district the rest of the city despised.

  “A slight one. You don’t have to talk. I don’t see the point of it anyway. No one will be talking about anything interesting, nor anything you know much about.”

  I nodded. That was one stipulation I didn’t mind. Keeping my mouth shut in front of a bunch of billionaires sounded rather appealing.

  The car dipped down Ralston Hill toward the docks. I was glad that my gloves kept people from noticing the sweat on my hands. Night had descended, but in this neighborhood, it didn’t bring the scum out with it. Instead, it only magnified what was already beautiful. People who looked like movie stars walked between bars, and red convertibles idled at traffic stops. Ezekiel snorted and rolled his eyes.

  “No class,” he murmured. “A nice black convertible is acceptable. But they’re flashy enough without a coat of paint like that.”

  “I’ve noticed you like black.”

  “It’s the best color there is.”

  “I think it’s rather gloomy.”

  “I don’t think of it that way. It goes marvelously with diamonds, at least.” With this, he gave me another sm
ile.

  Glancing at Ezekiel, I suddenly wondered where he came from. Were his parents wealthy? If he’d started out poor, how did he rise to such staggering heights? How did one get to be ridiculously rich so ridiculously fast? After all, he was still in his thirties. That didn’t give him much time to accumulate this much wealth.

  I’d never ask him, though.

  The yacht was an impressive boat, bigger than a house and strung with white lights. The docks were swarming with women in gowns and men in tuxedos. I could already hear the plink of delicate piano and the lofty laughter of socialites.

  The limo stopped and the driver opened our door. He helped me out with a meaty hand, though I didn’t need his assistance. I had plenty of experience in high heels. Maybe not so much experience in long gowns like this one, but I managed.

  Ezekiel emerged behind me. He nodded at his driver who returned to the car and drove away.

  “What do you think?” Ezekiel asked, his shoulder brushing mine.

  “Looks…terrifying.”

  He chuckled and slipped an arm around my waist. Despite all my experience with one-sided intimacy, the contact shocked me. “You stay with me. I’ll handle these people.”

  He led me up the ramp and into the crowd on deck, all of who smelled like expensive perfume. Maybe I should have been starstruck, but instead I hated them all. While they were all here, chatting and sipping from crystal glasses, there was gang warfare tearing my home district apart.

  Ezekiel didn’t seem to notice my bitter thoughts. He effortlessly steered me to the bar, where a man in a tux prepared drinks.

  I looked around while Ezekiel ordered. I didn’t recognize anyone, despite how wealthy and public they supposedly were. I doubted some of these people were as young as they looked, and up close that became more obvious. Noticing their flaws made me feel better, and it was a way to pass the time.

  “Here.”